Sunday, June 20, 2010

This Must Change

I'm pissed. Pissed at myself for letting myself go while I was injured this spring. I mountain biked quite a bit which helped keep up the cardiovascular somewhat, but I put on some serious weight. I fully realized this yesterday, after seeing photos of myself during the hike up Mt. Washington and it hit me like a ton of bricks. A gut was clearly visible:

Seeing the pictures was an eye-opener. It's unacceptable and I actually lost a lot of sleep over it last night. It hurts to look at this picture. When I'm in top running shape, I weigh around 175 lbs and am pretty ripped. Now? 192. Way too much. It's got to go, and I intend to make it happen. Code Red is in effect. I'm getting down to business... big time.

Despite doing some semi-regular mountain biking while waiting for my foot to heal up, my diet wasn't the greatest. Long story short, it's going to get much better, starting now. This includes eating much healthier. Cutting back on foods with cheese and/or breads, both of which I'm quite fond of, and also cutting back on sweets. More fruits and vegetables. Way more. And smaller portions. Also, no beer until my weight is lowered to at least 178.

I also put a big carrot in front of myself by registering for the MDI Marathon this morning. A little less than four months to go, and there's a lot of work to do between now and then.

But keeping things optimistic, I am feeling pretty good cardiovascularly, despite the weight. With the continued running (and mountain biking thrown in here and there) along with the diet, the weight should come off relatively quickly, or so I hope.

Ran this morning, with the intent of running easy to shake things loose after yesterday's hike, which I'm pretty darn sore from. Extremely humid out so it kind of sucked, but good to get out all the same.

13 comments:

I am right there with you Jamie! I hurt the back of my knee a couple of months ago and then had horrible allergies and a cold in May so didn't do too much then and have put on 15 lbs I am guessing. Today I am back full force in running and cutting back. I think the problem we have when we cut back on running is we still fuel ourselves like we were running and the lbs creep up. I am hoping to pack on the miles again so I can eat what I want without putting on the pounds.

Time off due to injury always blows. Don't be too hard on yourself, Jamie. People are too distracted by your ripped, piped up calves to notice anything else ;D You'll be back to where you want to be in no time!

Mindy and Danielle - thanks, but understand that this is how I deal with situations. A healthy side effect of getting really angry at myself is that I usually have a very good success rate at channeling it appropriately. It's motivation is all.

Jaimie, No big deal, the weight will come off now that you are healthy again. I'm pretty small, so it doesn't look so bad, but I gained 7% of my body weight after I fractured my vertebrae. WOW! It came off within a month of regular running once I healed. I didn't have to even try to lose it, it just went.

I'm 30 pounds lighter than I was 16 months ago. Almost all of that was from recording everything I ate and limiting the calories to an amount that would cause me to lose a pound a week. For every mile I ran allowed an extra 100 calories intake. I don't keep track any more but I'm running 40 miles a week. If I were to have to stop running I would immediately have to reduce intake and keep track or the weight would come back.

LOL photoshop that! YA!That is not much of a gut to look at. I thin kthe important thing is that you are getting a fire in you to be healthy. Lay offs happen, just getting active is the importan thing in life.Enjoy the fight!